On June 27, the California Assembly Elections Committee passed SB 924. The vote was 5-2. It provides that the Secretary of State will place an advisory question on the February 2008 ballot, asking voters their view of U.S. policy in Iraq. The bill had already passed the Senate.
As earlier noted, a federal court jury in Tallahassee, Florida, ruled on June 25 that the O’Hara/Martin faction of the national Reform Party is the true Reform Party. The O’Hara/Martin faction’s National Treasurer was Lee Dilworth in the recent past, and is now Barbara Del Washer.
But in the lawsuit Federal Election Commission v Reform Party, which determined that the Reform Party owes the FEC $333,000, the Reform Party’s national treasurer was assumed to be Beverly Kennedy. When Barbara Del Washer had tried to intervene in that lawsuit, on the grounds that she, not Beverly Kennedy, is Treasurer, the court had denied her intervention. UPDATE: Rodney Martin, recognized by the Tallahassee court as the Reform Party national chair, e-mails me that the FEC only let Beverly Kennedy intervene as an individual, not in her capacity as national chair. He also says that the FEC has recognized Barbara Del Washer as Treasurer. However, he does not deny that she was not permitted to intevene in the FEC lawsuit. FURTHER UPDATE: The reason Barbara Del Washer wasn’t permitted to intervene in the lawsuit FEC v Reform Party was merely that she tried to intervene too late; the court did not actually try to resolve who the Reform Party Treasurer was. Ballot Access News regrets that this original post was somewhat misleading.
On June 26, California held a special election to fill the vacancy in the 37th U.S. House district. Since no one got as much as 50%, a run-off will be held on August 21 between Democrat Laura Richardson, Republican John Kanaley, Green Daniel Brezenoff, and Libertarian Herb Peters. For the June 26 election results, see here.
On June 14, a new lawsuit was filed in federal court to strike down Oklahoma’s apparent ban on out-of-state petition circulators. It is Term Limits Group, et al v Savage, no. 5:07-cv-680.
The plaintiff wants to circulate an initiative petition expanding term limits to cover the state offices that are not already covered by Oklahoma’s term limits law. Although Governor and state legislators are already subject to term limits, there are no term limits on the other elected statewide executive posts, such as Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, etc.
On June 25, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen became the first election official in the United States to take legal action to force a vote-counting vender to reveal its source code. See this article. The dispute concerns ES&S.
